The Awards Show Is Dying a Slow and Painful Death

About an hour into the Golden Globes, while on the prowl for a standout moment (a stirring Oprah speech? a hilarious Amy/Tina-esue monologue? anything?) to write about—and, I daresay, to care about—I Slacked my editor: The awards show is dying a slow death. This was an observation more than a story idea, but, for me, this is the story of not just the Globes but the Oscars and most big, network-televised tentpole awards shows like the Emmys and Grammys, too.

There is an air of irrelevance underlying them, a sense that we are all strangely and awkwardly out of time (somewhere in the early 90's, maybe), trapped by an antiquated, overlong, wooden format, and clawing aimlessly at sagging ratings. To watch the Globes or any of the others is to fidget on the couch, refresh Twitter, grab another Rice Krispie treat and ask oneself: are we really still keeping up this charade?

I don't blame the players—in this case, the Golden Globes hosts: the usually rather funny Andy Samberg and certainly not the resplendent Sandra Oh. Hosting is a thankless job—hence why the Oscars still don't have one. I blame the game—the Globes, and the awards show at large—for forcing them into a musty old format: standing on stage in a Hollywood hotel auditorium with a few fleeting minutes to address the assembled star-studded crowd and millions of viewers at home. Many viewers who are now used to YouTube and Netflix and the mini reality shows playing out in their Instagram feeds. That's not to say awards shows should only be 15 seconds long and self-destruct within 24 hours, but... actually maybe that's not the worst idea.

For the supposedly fun, boozy awards show, the Globes isn't even fun anymore. Couldn't the hosts be allowed to... go outside? Or bring in the cast of Vanderpump Rules to cater this whole shebang? Be hosted by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in character as Ally and Jackson Maine? The best parts of the Globes didn't even happen during the Globes—far and away, they were Timothée Chalamet's sparkle harness and Chrissy Metz possibly calling Alison Brie a bitch on a hot mic (which Metz denies).

With the recent exceptions of Fey and Poehler at the Globes and Ellen Degeneres and Chris Rock's #OscarsSoWhite blitz at the Oscars, hosting is an un-winnable prospect: roast everyone mercilessly (see: Ricky Gervais) and you're cruel. But be aggressively kind a la Samberg and Oh... and everyone's meh. (It doesn't help that the jokes written for them didn't quite land). Oh's moment of marveling at a year of notably diverse nominees (Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asians, If Beale Street Could Talk) felt genuine and emotional, but also like whiplash after a lightning-fast segue from the aforementioned soft jokes.

It's part of the ongoing problem with awards shows: they're old Hollywood institutions who aren't quite sure how to handle a new Hollywood in flux. Take MeToo: Watching this year's ceremony, you'd think sexual harassment and the pay gap were magically cured—a sharp contrast from last year's Globes, which was dominated by mostly women in black, accompanied by activists, railing at E!—on E!'s air—about the network's paying Catt Sadler less than her male counterpart. On Sunday night, the credibly accused sexual harasser but still gainfully employed E! impresario Ryan Seacrest—wearing a Time's Up bracelet no less!—held court on the red carpet, missing the point by largely not asking what designers the stars were wearing... but also failing to ask other substantive questions. I about stood and cheered when Regina King became the first winner to acknowledge (a mere year after Hollywood's MeToo movement began picking up steam) that the work of that movement is far from over, vowing that every upcoming project she produces will be staffed by 50-percent women and challenging others in positions of power to do the same. For a brief moment, the Globes felt relevant. (Even if, in the current Trump administration hellfire, three solid hours of Hollywood self-congratulation in a room filled with a great many millionaires may not feel like top priority.)

Does anyone really rely on awards shows to tell us what's good or worthy of our attention anymore—especially when the governing boards behind said awards shows have been revealed to be overwhelmingly white and male? I loved A Star Is Born and BlackkKlansman—I don't much care if the Globes did, too. This feels especially true in the case of the HFPA, a largely obscured organization and the founding fathers of the swag bag who believed Johnny Depp's The Tourist to be multi-nomination-worthy cinematic gold. Similarly, consider that The Grammys didn't think Beyoncé's Lemonade was an Album of the Year not long ago, and one of America's favorite, mostly highly-rated shows, This Is Us, was snubbed by the Globes in 2018.

None of this brings me even a slither of satisfaction. I'm a person who, for as long as I can remember, has been obsessed with movies and TV and pop culture and, yes, awards shows. I covered the Oscars, live from the red carpet and backstage from the Kodak Theatre, twice, and was close enough to the still-together Brangelina to see their individual eyelashes. But I love the awards show enough to want it to change with the times—or else risk certain death.

See All of the Celebrity Looks From the Golden Globes 2019 Red Carpet:

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